Remember to follow us on Facebook and Twitter and to keep an eye on our blog to get the latest news!

I figured it would be handy to have one thread that has all the most frequently asked questions, as well as solutions to the most common issues people have encountered with this game. For troubleshooting issues, please skip straight to the Troubleshooting section below.

If you did not receive an answer to your question, please send us an email at Support [at] Frozenbyte [dot] com with your question or a detailed description of your problem, if you are having one. For troubleshooting issues, please also tell us your operating system and other system specifications.

Shadowgrounds breathes fresh air into the action genre with explosive combat sequences, an innovative weapon upgrade system, and an intriguing storyline. The adrenaline-pumping, top-down gameplay and audiovisual fireworks set the scene for this action experience which also includes single computer (split keyboard or joystick) co-op play.

Mac System RequirementsOS: Mac OS X 10.6.5 or better - Unfortunately OS X 10.9 NOT supportedProcessor: Intel MacMemory: 1 GB RAMHard Disk Space: 1GBVideo Card: OpenGL 2.0 compatible video card with 256 MB shared or dedicated RAM (ATI or NVIDIA)*DirectX®: 9.0Additional: Keyboard+mouse or Keyboard+trackpad*Please be advised that the game does not run on Intel graphics solutions (such as Macbooks from 2006-2008 and the new MacBook Pro 13" models from 2011). The game does run on most Macs from 2009 onwards that have a distinct graphics chip (such as those with NVIDIA GeForce 9400M but graphics details need to be turned down for smooth gameplay).

FAQ

WHY IS THE GAME SO DARK?

The game being dark is a conscious choice to keep up the great atmosphere. If you desperately need to see more, you can use the Gamma level slider in the Options menu to brighten the screen.

CAN I ADJUST/CHANGE THE CAMERA?

Shadowgrounds features a "Free Camera" mode where the camera is not locked to the original position. You can also slightly alter the pitch of the camera. It's still top-down, but might suit your play style better.

DOES THE GAME SUPPORT MULTIPLE KEYBOARDS AND MICE?

Unfortunately, no. Gamepads are recommended for co-op play.

IS INTERNET/LAN SUPPORT COMING TO SHADOWGROUNDS?

We have no plans of adding this at the moment.

TROUBLESHOOTING

THE GAME DOES NOT LAUNCH

You could try to verify the game cache through Steam (right-click on Shadowgrounds in your Steam Library, click on properties, choose local files tab and click the button to verify integrity of game cache). You could also try a full re-install of the game.

Please note that Shadowgrounds does not support OS X 10.9 versionsHowever players using OS X 10.9 could still try the following workaround. This workaround unfortunately doesn't seem to work on OS X 10.10.

Open Terminal application and run the next command (replace USERNAME with your own Mac OS username):

If that does not help, please send us a detailed description of your issue to Support[at]Frozenbyte[dot]com along with your system information, and we can try to help!

PLAYING WITH WIDESCREEN RESOLUTIONS

Shadowgrounds by default does not support widescreen resolutions (Shadowgrounds: Survivor does).

The game can still play in widescreen almost fine, and to do so you need to edit the options.txt located at: /Steam/SteamApps/common/Shadowgrounds/Config

Find the following lines:screen_height = 768screen_width = 1024

Change them to whatever you want (e.g. 1080/1200 and 1920 and so on). Note that height is first. Save the file and launch the game (the Launcher will show a blank space where the resolution is but it will work, just don't touch it).

The user interface has some minor anomalities in widescreen resolution, a little bit of stretching etc, but the actual game is rendered properly and should behave well.

I HEAR NO SOUNDS IN THE GAME

It seems that this issue is caused by a crash that very, very rarely occurs when the user tries to adjust the settings in the game's Options menu. After the crash or blue screen, the game simply has no sounds anymore. For some users, the only sound that works is the "let's kick their a**" vocal associated with the Speech slider.For others, nothing works.

However, the solution has been found. Two users solved this by deleting ALL of the local content (at least \Steam\SteamApps\youraccount\shadowgrounds folder and the shadowgrounds.gcf file) and then re-downloading the entire game through Steam again. Now the sounds should work again.

You can also try visiting the operating system desktop once by pressing alt-tab (not by exiting the game). Then go back to the game in similar manner, or click the Shadowgrounds button in the Taskbar.

HOW CAN I START A CO-OP GAME?

Just follow these steps:

1. Check that your gamepads show up in your operating system’s Game Controllers (in Control Panel)2. Launch Shadowgrounds3. Go to Profiles and create a new player profile for each gamepad/player, or modify an existing profile.4. Select one of the newly created profiles and go to Options menu.5. Set up the button configuration and the X and Y axis (for aiming, usually mapped to the right analog stick).6. Repeat the process for each player participating in the game7. When all players have configured their gamepads and/or keyboard+mouse, select New Game (or Load Game if you have a previously saved Co-op game).8. Select Co-Operative, then the difficulty level, and press Start.9. That's it! Have fun!

WHY CAN'T I USE ALL KEYBOARD BUTTONS?

Shadowgrounds allows only certain keyboard buttons to be mapped as controls.

However, some people might want to use buttons that are not supported initially. Such could be the left and right brackets on the US keyboard (located next to the P letter).

This is possible but it requires that you manually edit the keybinds.txt which is located in \Steam\SteamApps\common\Shadowgrounds\Profiles\[your profile]\Config\. Please take a backup copy of this file before you edit it.

Now, you should see lines of text with a keyboard button next to it, such as:attack = button-1

Before you can map your desired button to the file, you need to know the correct number for it. This might be hard to obtain, because it's only included in the DirectX Input key codes names, and doesn't seem to be readily available on the Internet. The best way is to experiment or get in touch via the forums. The key codes are related to their position on the keyboard.

In the case of the left and right brackets, their numbers are #26 and #27, respectively. So if you want the left bracket to shoot the primary fire, you would write:attack = #26

I took the liberty of editing this based on a post at Steam's old forums wrote by Jeff from Meridian4.